If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website.

If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked.

Main content

Rewriting tricky fractions to decimals

Learn to convert the fraction, 17/93 to a decimal. Created by Sal Khan.

Want to join the conversation?

  • duskpin seed style avatar for user Ismael Serrano
    When you get confused about which to divide by, numerator or denominator, imagine it like this. "The Cowboy and The Horse" this is a trick I learned in grade school where you imagine the numerator as the man and the denominator as the horse. The man goes inside the house to get some water and the horse stays outside. For example: 1/5
    the 1 is the cowboy, and the 5 is the horse. The cowboy goes inside: /1 ; and the horse stays outside: 5/ ; therefore, 5/1. If my words were sort of confusing at all, which I'm sure they were, I'm sorry, try to understand to the best of your ability.
    (20 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user Вук Бундало
    I cant get any energy points from this video, all other videos in section Decimals are fine. :)
    (7 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • spunky sam red style avatar for user Avijit Sen
    If I divide 10 by 3, I get 3.3333 and continuing. Does it have a name in mathematics?
    (2 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • leafers ultimate style avatar for user Colin Vanderveen
    how do you convert mixed numbers to decimals.
    (4 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • blobby green style avatar for user Dshowoff AlwaysKooling
    Make 50 3/8 into decimal
    (3 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • leafers tree style avatar for user JMonster
    Is there a reason you use multiple zeros before needed behind the decimal point on each problem?
    (3 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
    • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user jimstanley49
      A lot of the time you will be doing this to fractions where the numerator is smaller than the denominator. This means you will need to have at least one extra zero right from the start. You can either keep adding them as you go, or decide how many places you want to find at the beginning. The more places you find the more exact your answer will be, but there is a diminishing return; the farther out to the right you go, the less important the digits are. Usually three or four are enough to be getting on with, but pay attention to the question in case it tells you how far out to work it.
      (2 votes)
  • blobby green style avatar for user Yazen Aissa
    so for example what happens if u get a into a situation where you have to convert a fraction that also has a number next to the numerator?
    (2 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • leaf blue style avatar for user Thomas Fear
    How come this is such an old video? Surely something so fundamental and high-traffic as long division is important to get to a high quality of clarity?

    In isolation is not at ALL clear how Khan produces this method of division using remainders - after going elsewhere to learn the actual details step-by-step it makes a lot of sense but here it's presented as a complete black box - just trust me it works.

    I find it so frustrating that people approach complex arithmetic algorithms like this as though they're the simplest things out there. There are more things going on which need to be done in very specific sequence here than in much more 'complex' subjects down the line.

    I really feel like this blasé approach to teaching fundamental arithmetic techniques is what turns so many away from maths so soon in their lives. Arithmetic is NOT EASY; it may be simple once you know your way around, but something being simple doesn't necessarily make it easy.

    This method of long division comes up again later when dealing with polynomials, and I recall my lecturer during this time basically threw material at us and told us 'its just long division' - what!?
    (2 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • orange juice squid orange style avatar for user 1 McKee Averie
    umm this does make sense at all times
    (2 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user
  • blobby green style avatar for user Kartik Singh
    can we remove decimal point in the numerator if theres equal amount of zeroes as decimal point iin denominator. for example 0.25/100. can we remove decimal point here
    (2 votes)
    Default Khan Academy avatar avatar for user

Video transcript

I'll now show you how to convert a fraction into a decimal. And if we have time, maybe we'll learn how to do a decimal into a fraction. So let's start with, what I would say, is a fairly straightforward example. Let's start with the fraction 1/2. And I want to convert that into a decimal. So the method I'm going to show you will always work. What you do is you take the denominator and you divide it into the numerator. Let's see how that works. So we take the denominator-- is 2-- and we're going to divide that into the numerator, 1. And you're probably saying, well, how do I divide 2 into 1? Well, if you remember from the dividing decimals module, we can just add a decimal point here and add some trailing 0's. We haven't actually changed the value of the number, but we're just getting some precision here. We put the decimal point here. Does 2 go into 1? No. 2 goes into 10, so we go 2 goes into 10 five times. 5 times 2 is 10. Remainder of 0. We're done. So 1/2 is equal to 0.5. Let's do a slightly harder one. Let's figure out 1/3. Well, once again, we take the denominator, 3, and we divide it into the numerator. And I'm just going to add a bunch of trailing 0's here. 3 goes into-- well, 3 doesn't go into 1. 3 goes into 10 three times. 3 times 3 is 9. Let's subtract, get a 1, bring down the 0. 3 goes into 10 three times. Actually, this decimal point is right here. 3 times 3 is 9. Do you see a pattern here? We keep getting the same thing. As you see it's actually 0.3333. It goes on forever. And a way to actually represent this, obviously you can't write an infinite number of 3's. Is you could just write 0.-- well, you could write 0.33 repeating, which means that the 0.33 will go on forever. Or you can actually even say 0.3 repeating. Although I tend to see this more often. Maybe I'm just mistaken. But in general, this line on top of the decimal means that this number pattern repeats indefinitely. So 1/3 is equal to 0.33333 and it goes on forever. Another way of writing that is 0.33 repeating. Let's do a couple of, maybe a little bit harder, but they all follow the same pattern. Let me pick some weird numbers. Let me actually do an improper fraction. Let me say 17/9. So here, it's interesting. The numerator is bigger than the denominator. So actually we're going to get a number larger than 1. But let's work it out. So we take 9 and we divide it into 17. And let's add some trailing 0's for the decimal point here. So 9 goes into 17 one time. 1 times 9 is 9. 17 minus 9 is 8. Bring down a 0. 9 goes into 80-- well, we know that 9 times 9 is 81, so it has to go into it only eight times because it can't go into it nine times. 8 times 9 is 72. 80 minus 72 is 8. Bring down another 0. I think we see a pattern forming again. 9 goes into 80 eight times. 8 times 9 is 72. And clearly, I could keep doing this forever and we'd keep getting 8's. So we see 17 divided by 9 is equal to 1.88 where the 0.88 actually repeats forever. Or, if we actually wanted to round this we could say that that is also equal to 1.-- depending where we wanted to round it, what place. We could say roughly 1.89. Or we could round in a different place. I rounded in the 100's place. But this is actually the exact answer. 17/9 is equal to 1.88. I actually might do a separate module, but how would we write this as a mixed number? Well actually, I'm going to do that in a separate. I don't want to confuse you for now. Let's do a couple more problems. Let me do a real weird one. Let me do 17/93. What does that equal as a decimal? Well, we do the same thing. 93 goes into-- I make a really long line up here because I don't know how many decimal places we'll do. And remember, it's always the denominator being divided into the numerator. This used to confuse me a lot of times because you're often dividing a larger number into a smaller number. So 93 goes into 17 zero times. There's a decimal. 93 goes into 170? Goes into it one time. 1 times 93 is 93. 170 minus 93 is 77. Bring down the 0. 93 goes into 770? Let's see. It will go into it, I think, roughly eight times. 8 times 3 is 24. 8 times 9 is 72. Plus 2 is 74. And then we subtract. 10 and 6. It's equal to 26. Then we bring down another 0. 93 goes into 26-- about two times. 2 times 3 is 6. 18. This is 74. 0. So we could keep going. We could keep figuring out the decimal points. You could do this indefinitely. But if you wanted to at least get an approximation, you would say 17 goes into 93 0.-- or 17/93 is equal to 0.182 and then the decimals will keep going. And you can keep doing it if you want. If you actually saw this on exam they'd probably tell you to stop at some point. You know, round it to the nearest hundredths or thousandths place. And just so you know, let's try to convert it the other way, from decimals to fractions. Actually, this is, I think, you'll find a much easier thing to do. If I were to ask you what 0.035 is as a fraction? Well, all you do is you say, well, 0.035, we could write it this way-- we could write that's the same thing as 03-- well, I shouldn't write 035. That's the same thing as 35/1,000. And you're probably saying, Sal, how did you know it's 35/1000? Well because we went to 3-- this is the 10's place. Tenths not 10's. This is hundreths. This is the thousandths place. So we went to 3 decimals of significance. So this is 35 thousandths. If the decimal was let's say, if it was 0.030. There's a couple of ways we could say this. Well, we could say, oh well we got to 3-- we went to the thousandths Place. So this is the same thing as 30/1,000. or. We could have also said, well, 0.030 is the same thing as 0.03 because this 0 really doesn't add any value. If we have 0.03 then we're only going to the hundredths place. So this is the same thing as 3/100. So let me ask you, are these two the same? Well, yeah. Sure they are. If we divide both the numerator and the denominator of both of these expressions by 10 we get 3/100. Let's go back to this case. Are we done with this? Is 35/1,000-- I mean, it's right. That is a fraction. 35/1,000. But if we wanted to simplify it even more looks like we could divide both the numerator and the denominator by 5. And then, just to get it into simplest form, that equals 7/200. And if we wanted to convert 7/200 into a decimal using the technique we just did, so we would do 200 goes into 7 and figure it out. We should get 0.035. I'll leave that up to you as an exercise. Hopefully now you get at least an initial understanding of how to convert a fraction into a decimal and maybe vice versa. And if you don't, just do some of the practices. And I will also try to record another module on this or another presentation. Have fun with the exercises.